ABINGTON – Employees at the Abington Ale House served themselves a refreshing bucket of ice water on Tuesday as the restaurant’s staff took part in the Ice Bucket Challenge.

The challenge, which has gone viral across social media, has led to tens of thousands of participants dumping a bucket of ice water on their heads in order to raise awareness about ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), otherwise known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Participants film themselves dumping the ice water on themselves, post the video to social media and then pick several friends to challenge, giving them 24 hours to either do the challenge, make a donation to the ALS Association or both.

About 35 employees at the Ale House participated in the challenge, which took place in front of the restaurant Tuesday morning.

“We donated $500, and we are trying to get other restaurants to donate some money, too,” said Mark Hastings, a manager at Abington Ale House.

The restaurant decided to participate in the challenge as a group during an employee meeting after members of the staff began to be called out by friends and family on social media.

“All of our staff has been doing it,” Hastings said, adding that he had already taken the challenge individually after being called out by a friend.

The staff has since posted a video of their challenge on the restaurant’s Facebook page, and they have challenged several other local restaurants, including the Charlie Horse in West Bridgewater, Cellar Tavern in Abington, Abington Depot and Main Street Grille in Weymouth.

As of Tuesday night, none of those restaurants had responded to the challenge.

Between July 29 and Tuesday, the ALS Association has received $4 million in donations, compared to the $1.2 million the association received last year during the same period.

The ALS Association has also had 70,000 new donors in that time period.

“We have never seen anything like this in the history of the disease,” Barbara Newhouse, president and CEO of the ALS Association, said in a statement. “We couldn’t be more thrilled with the level of compassion, generosity and sense of humor that people are exhibiting as they take part in this impactful viral initiative.”

ALS is a neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord. Specifically, the disease affects motor neurons, which control muscle movement. As the disease progresses, degeneration of the motor neurons eventually leads to the neurons’ death, thereby weakening voluntary muscle action and often leaving patients totally paralyzed in later stages of the disease.

About 5,600 people are diagnosed with ALS in the United States each year, and it is estimated that 30,000 Americans may have the disease at any given time.

Page 2 of 2 - On average, a patient’s life expectancy after their diagnosis is between two and five years. Although, there is a prescription drug, Riluzole, which has been found effective in slowing the progress of ALS and extending patients’ lives by at least a few months, there is currently no cure for the disease.